The Babadook puts a children’s book at its center, all but asking viewers to compare the movie to folk tales, fairy tales, and darker kinds of children’s stories. What is one particular way that you think the movie borrows from archtypal stories about parents, children, magic and monsters? I attached a few nineteenth-century versions of familiar fairy tales to the syllabus. Reading those might give you a place to start.
13 thoughts on “The Babadook”
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The movie borrows from the archetypal stories by fusing together a variety of the Grim Fairytales in order to portray a gothic style movie and convey a message that is easy to understand. For instance the movie contained some elements of the typical fairytales. Sam was born on the day that his father died and that an aspect that his mother always resented him for. I do find it interesting how in Claire is like an evil stepmother to Sam and Claire’s daughter is the step-sister. For instance, when Amelia asked Claire to babysit and Claire did babysit but when Sam was scaring her own child Claire comforted her own child and yelled at Sam for not being “normal.” In the birthday party she was letting her sister, Amelia be taunted by the other mothers and not standing up for her and in the tree house Sam was being taunted by Claire’s daughter. In other instances the story is like Hansel and Gretel when their father led the children deep into the woods in order to abandon them in hopes of getting lost. In some cases Amelia was the father leading Sam astray as she was consumed by her depression and anxiety.
I think the movie borrows a lot from Rapunzel’s ending. We see an evil mythical creature that causes the hero to make a sacrifice which leads to a brave showing of love that heals all and results in a happy ending. The same way in which the prince threw himself from the tower, the mother in The Babadook threw herself at the creature. Both acts caused great harm but the harm was no match for the love and loyalty between the characters in both settings.
I think in most fairy tales both involving children and for children, the fact that children have less strong sense of reality and instead wilder imaginations is used to create this sense of terror and sort of breathe life into stories like the babadook, or to paint more vivid pictures of stories like Rumpelstiltskin. These supposed children’s stories tend to be quite violent at times which I think the Babadook takes inspo from and takes that small fright one once had as a child and multiplies it by 10 to now scare you as an adult. For example, when the Evil Queen instructs Snow White to be killed, but goes even further by wanting to eat her lungs and liver. It’s vile really, and this same tone carries through the Babadook when the mother says terrible things to her son that go far beyond just hurting him. These twisted themes seem to be overarching in this genre because they’re thought of as fairy tales, therefore the violence can be as far fetched as the whimsicality.
In my perception of the Babadook and the fairy tales we read, I. believe that denial plays a strong factor. While debatable whether the Babadook is real or not, I see connections in the denial between this somewhat modern horror film and the short stories posted this week. In the Babadook it’s clear and written out for the audience –> the more you deny the reality of the Babadook, the stronger he becomes. Denial is portrayed in a much more mild format in the short stories with examples as simple as the three little piggies with the first two piggies denying the danger imposed upon them by the wolf. Another rather obvious example of denial is in Snow White, with the evil queen’s refusal to accept that she is not as beautiful as Snow White. While in the short stories the denial doesn’t strike me as much, in the Babadook movie it certainly did. The depiction of the mother fully consumed by her denial to the point that she doesn’t even realize she is, let alone accept it, it painted a dark image of how twisted grief can make a person in the name of self-preservation without even realizing it. Similar things can be correlated to stories such as Snow White, though in a watered down fashion for easier digestion in younger audiences.
The archetypal fairy tale stories from the 19th century share a common theme where the protagonist is met with an evil presence, and they must fight against it. For instance, in Grimm’s Little Snow White fairy tale, Snow White’s struggle with the wickedness of her mother is portrayed. In Rumpelstiltskin, the daughter is confronted with evil several times when she meets the king and the little man. Similarly, the movie Babadook, a film where a children’s book is central to the plot, shares this same kind of parallel to these fairy tale stories because it displays the mother’s struggle with the Babadook monster. As a result, the plot in Babadook, where the mother is fighting against the beast, is reminiscent of a common theme in 19th-century fairy tales, where the protagonist fights against an evil presence.
The Babadook is similar to fairy tales in its use of a monster to impart a moral lesson. While I do think that the Babadook is supposed to be real and not just a hallucination, I believe it is still very much a metaphor for Amelia’s persistent grief. Particularly in the first half or so of the film, we see Amelia repeatedly deny her grief. She claims to have completely gotten over it and moved on, even though that is quite obviously not the case. This continued denial is mirrored by the dogged persistence of the Babadook. It is her denial of its existence that allows it to possess her. Similarly, her emotional suppression only worsens the grief she tried to ignore. Just as with grief, “You can’t get rid of the Babadook”. As such, it is only once she accepts and acknowledges the Babadook that she is able to control it. The moral lesson imparted therein is evocative of the metaphorical approaches fairy tales often take.
In classic fairy tales, the presence of a monster or a dark force is emblematic of the internal and external conflicts faced by the characters. This can be seen in “Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s tales” where many creatures represent both a literal threat and a metaphorical challenge to the protagonists. Similarly, “The Babadook” manifests not just as a supernatural threat but as a personification of grief and unresolved trauma within Emilia’s family. The Babadook in the movie, much like those antagonists or “supernatural beings” in fairy tales, often embodies sinister Freudian undertones that mirror reality and reflect deeply suppressed emotions or hidden feelings. These entities are typically manifestations of those dark, fleeting thoughts that occasionally cross our minds. This concept reminds me of Dillard’s commentary on “Night of the Living Dead”: “What girl, at one time or another, hasn’t wished to kill her mother?” In a similar vein, “The Babadook” prompts the unsettling question, “What exhausted mother, at one time or another, hasn’t wished to kill her son or daughter?” These narratives dive into the darker recesses of human psychology, using the supernatural as a metaphor to explore and externalize inner turmoil and forbidden desires.
Another similarity between the Babadook and traditional fairy tales lies in their use of supernatural/extreme punishment as a means to explore and communicate moral and psychological truths. Both use the horror and cruelty of their punishments not merely to entertain but to provoke a deeper understanding of human nature and societal norms.
-accidentally posted under babadook 2-
There is an obvious parallel to Rumplestiltskin rapunzel, and other folktales when the Babadook, disguised as her dead husband, essentially offers her a rigged trade intended to result in her giving up her firstborn/only child. The taking or corrupting of the child is a recurring trope in fairy tales. I remember another story where a child gets replaced with some little old baby-looking elf or sprite.
This moment in the film is where she fully succumbs to the Babadook, and it is definitely scary and impactful. I don’t know if it’s entirely because of the foltake parallel though.
There is also something to the idea that in Grimms fairy tales, and other old folktales, you genuinely cannot expect a happy ending. Thinking about this in the context of the Babadook, after we get the revised book and start to imagine what comes next, it was entirely unclear to me whether she was actually going to kill her kid.
The movie uses other techniques related to child-centric media. Framing the monster initially as the product of a kid’s overactive imagination, but then it turns out to be real(?), is another common trope in children’s media. There was something, to me, that evoked ‘Where the Wild Things Are.’
There is also an element of playing on the actual feeling of being a scared child. To me, this was more powerful than the children’s media-based devices. It is used in the way we see the monster represented – most obviously as clothes on a coatrack multiple times, but also in the way it is always barely visible out of the corner of your eye. I think it was really cool that hiding under the covers actually made the monster go away a couple times. The feeling of relative safety by way of the covers really worked for me, because it was so viscerally connected to my experiences of being a scared kid at night.
Folk and Fairy Tales was my first-year seminar, so this is something I have a bit of an education on. From the methodical knocking, the iterations of three, and the bad man demanding to be let in, I think there is a strong connection between the Babadook and the Three Little Pigs. The movie was pretty upfront about this allegory, with Amelia even watching the 1933 animated rendition of it. In this rendition, the wolf wears sheep’s wool to trick the second pig to let him in. This is similar to the method that the Babadook used on Amelia and Sam to invade their lives. The villain made himself appear harmless, however, this time it was done through a children’s book. There isn’t as much rhetorical value derived from the Babadook book as compared to the Three Little Pigs though, yet both share the value of being wary of who you let in.
I agree, I think furthermore, the use of allegories and repetition (often seen in fairy tales) works to further separate the stories from reality. This idea of a a wolf in sheep’s clothing often acts as a metaphor for many narratives, though I think work’s especially well in other stories because of it’s simplistic, yet whimsical nature.
Reading the Grimm fairy tales, I think the Babadook capitalized off of many fairy tales’ characteristic dark turn (for example, Rapunzel’s lover’s eyes being poked out, Snow White’s evil mother having to dance in burning shoes until she died). The titular tale at the heart of The Babadook utlizes rhyme and the “dark turn” to become catchy: who could forget “if it’s in a word or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook”? Similarly, the film also utilizes a simple monster concept to embody a set of complicated and contemporary themes. I think well known fairy tales do this as well: Rumpelstiltskin, for example, is just a little guy, but the story he accompanies is much bigger and more complex than that. Stories like Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel and Snow White are unforgettable because they are simple yet clever and they incorporate a profound darkness that packs a real punch. The Babadook aims to animate these tools in a contemporary context.
I think the Babadook is quite similar to fairy tales in the way that it creates a dark story that parellels something equally dark in the real world, but in a way that children can understand. Snow White warns kids of stranger danger, Rapunzel is a parable of abusive parents, Rumpelstilkskin of lying and greed, Hansel and Gretel of abandonment (and also somewhat stranger danger) and so on and so forth. These Fairy tales, though very dark, are easier for children to digest than the truth. So the Babadook does something similar- the Babadook is a creation parelelling the mom’s grief, mental illness, and possibly addiction.
Something that strikes me about the stories are the unusually cruel and violent methods used to punish disobedient children. It reminds me of the way Samuel is treated in the Babadook, which I think definitely plays into the dark side of these moral tales for children. Outside of those stories, it also seems to me like The Babadook flips children’s tales about brave kids battling monsters that are so present in children’s books, films, and television – I’m thinking about things like Jack and the Beanstalk, but also even YA fiction that is popular today – The Babadook turns those child-friendly stories into something much more frightening and disturbing. There were even moments in this film that reminded me of a much darker take on movies like Home Alone, in the way Samuel creates homemade weapons as well as employing traps to catch The Babadook.